Plants vs. Zombies Heroes/General terminology
This is the article used for general card terminology. These terminologies are often used in place of other words. General Terminologies Area of Effect Area of Effect, or AoE for short, is a certain card type which affects most or all minions. Some targets for Area of Effect cards include all (opposing faction), all (friendly faction) or both. Board control Board control is an unofficial card term, referring to a player's ability to keep the opponent from building up minions on the board so that they don't gain an early or late advantage. Control decks are often most associated with this term due to their removals and their large minions late game. Buff A buff is the opposite of a nerf, and is a change made to a card to make it more effective or powerful. Buffs include Soul Patch and at one point, A Shadow Falls. Alternatively, buffing a fighter refers to increasing its stats or ability. The Beastly and Mega-Grow classes specifically specialize in buffing fighters. Buffing cards include Going Viral, Fertilize, Blazing Bark, and Rock Wall. Cards that buff themselves include High-Voltage Currant, Overstuffed Zombie, Zombot's Wrath (when its conditions are met), and Alien Ooze (when used on heights and Environments). Build-around Build-around is a term used to a card with specific synergies, which can encourage the player to build specific decks around them, the decks themselves sometimes called builds. Some decks are built around one or multiple cards or a tribe. Some examples of decks that are built around a card or a tribe are Re-Peat Moss (due to its powerful synergy with tricks) or the Flower tribe (due to Briar Rose or due to both having a huge benefit with the same tribe on the board). Many build-around decks have win conditions, most normally one turn kills or to put strong board control with those cards. Burst Burst, or Burst potential, refers to a player's ability of dealing massive damage in one or two turns, allowing a player to finish off the opponent very easily. It can play a role in aggro decks because they work as a strong finisher if the player loses board control. Combo decks often rely on burst to kill their opponent from full health. Card Advantage Card Advantage is a term to describe which player has more access to cards within their hand. Having more cards allows a player to have more answers to threats that are played on the board. Cost Similar to mana, cost is a neutral term for the sun/brain price of cards. An "x''-cost" card requires ''x sun/brains to play. , Arm Wrestler, Bungee Plumber, and Superpowers are all "1-cost" cards. Curve Curve is a term that refers to the distribution of the cost of cards in a deck. Playing cards on curve means playing a card on the earliest turn possible for their costs, which can provide a tempo and card advantage. Drop Drop is a term used to describe the cost of a card. Example: A "2-drop" is a card which costs 2 sun/brains, such as . Face Face is a slang term which refers to the player's hero as a target for damaging attacks or effects. Example: By "going face" or "attacking face" refers to focusing attacks against the enemy hero rather than teammates on the board. "Face damage" refers to damage to the enemy hero. Face decks are normally associated with aggro decks due to their aggressive playstyle focusing on the opposing hero than teammates. Free to play Free to play, also known as F2P is a term used to refer to a player not buying content within the game. A usual free to play player collection will often have few super-rares and legendaries. Lethal Lethal is a term originated from the game Hearthstone which means to have sufficient damage to defeat the opposing hero and win the game. To "have lethal" is a measure of having imminent and unavoidable success. To "miss lethal" is when a player who has lethal on their turn should win the game, but it does not occur due to an unexpected block from the Super-Block Meter or an overlook in card combos that could have let them win the game. Mana Mana is a neutral nickname given to the sun/brain currency of cards that is derived from the resource in the game Hearthstone. It is similar to drop. Example: Winter Squash and Mad Chemist cost "4 mana" to play. Meta The meta, or the metagame, describes the trends of decks within Plants vs. Zombies Heroes. The meta is primarily an interest seeking to anticipate the choices of the opposing hero. Due to being able to not see the hero being fought against and not being able to see their deck, the contents of the deck and the deck do not become clear until a key card or a hint is revealed. The player being able to anticipate their opponents' moves gives the player a strong tactical advantage. Notable meta decks from the following sets are: Game release *Professor Brainstorm Valkyrie, utilizing Teleport and Lurch for Lunch. Also referred to as OTK (one-turn kill) Valkyrie. *Solar Flare control. *Kabloom rush, usually using Pineclone. Galactic Gardens *Professor Brainstorm control Trickster, commonly known as Proffeser Pay to Win *Wall-Knight healing. *Green Shadow Clique Peas. *Nightcap burst, also referred to as Faceblaster and Cyclecap. *Bad Moon Rising builds, relying on ramp, filling board, and RNG. Often used with or Huge-Gigantacus due to the Sneaky class' cheap and Amphibious zombies. Colossal Fossils *Super Brainz or Huge-Gigantacus Ramp Zom-Blob, often utilizing Lurch For Lunch or Carried Away with Teleport or Teleportation Zombie. *Rustbolt or Z-Mech and Stompadon (also utilizing Quickdraw Con Man for the case of Z-Mech). *Solar Flare aggro. *Nightcap burst. *Professor Brainstorm mill, utilizing Regifting Zombie and Quickdraw Con Man. Triassic Triumph *Kabloom berry builds. *Nightcap burst. *Solar healing. *Solar Flare aggro. *Professor Brainstorm Valkyrie, instead using Mustache Monument. Mill Mill is a term that originated from the game Hearthstone which refers to a range of phenomenon related to card draw. In Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, milling refers to forcing the opponent to overdraw, resulting in their Super-Block Meter unable to block more hits because the player cannot add the resulting Superpower into their hand. Mill decks are decks that aim to win by overdrawing the opponent. Typical mill cards include Regifting Zombie, Pogo Bouncer in conjunction with In-Crypted or Mixed-Up Gravedigger, Backyard Bounce and Zombot Stomp. Mulligan The mulligan, also known as a card selection stage, occurs at the very start of a match before play. In-game, this is called "redrawing cards." Both players are given 4 randomly chosen cards from their respective deck as their starting hand, which they can redraw as many as they want if they are not happy with their hand. After redrawing a card, there is no way to redraw the new card they are given. Once both players are finished with the mulligan, the game goes into play with the first turn occurring. Nerf A nerf is a card change made by developers to make a card less effective or powerful. Nerfs are also used in level redesigning to make a level easier. Some examples of nerfed cards or levels include Clique Peas, Jurassic Fossilhead, Impfinity Rides Again, and A Shadow Falls. Pay to win Pay-to-win, also known as P2W is a term used to refer to paying for game content in order to unlock more cards. Notable decks with many legendaries are referred as pay-to-win. Ramp Ramp is a term used to refer to gaining more sun/brains than usual. Examples of ramp cards include Cryo-Brain and . Removal Removal is a term to refer the elimination or destruction of minions from the board. There are two types of removal, hard removal and soft removal. Hard removal normally ignore most effects or traits, such as transformation effects or destroy effects. Some examples of hard removal are or Locust Swarm. Soft removal are removal cards, which use damage to remove a card. Some examples include Berry Blast and Cakesplosion. Tempo Tempo is an unofficial term that describes which way the momentum of a match is going, as well as a label for decks that tend to maintain tempo on their side. Tempo is concerned with the player's control over the game in the immediate and short-term, particularly with minions played on the board. Tempo is closely related to board control. Top-deck A top-deck is a slang term for a card that has just been drawn from the top of the deck. A top deck can be either used as a term for a player to draw a card with no cards in their hand or a player drawing a card that can help deal with the situation rather than playing other cards already in their hand. Top-decking can also refer to drawing the best card possible for the current situation, mostly those that results in lethal that otherwise would result in a loss. For example, if the opposing Plant Hero has a full board of 2-Strength plants, the best possible top-deck for a Hearty hero would be Weed Spray. Another example is top-decking a Going Viral when a plant is blocking lethal to ensnare victory before your opponent. In a nutshell, this will ensure that you or your opponent will win a game they should've not won in the first place due to its infuriating nature of luck this takes. Trading A trade or trading involves the loss of one or more cards or teammates in order to destroy one or more teammates. Value trading is when one player plays less cards than the opponent in order to remove one or multiple teammates. If a has been buffed with Embiggen and Fertilize, using Rocket Science to remove it can generate a 3-for-1 trade for the Zombie Hero, due to the Zombie Hero using one card to take out a Peashooter (1 card) buffed with two other cards, which will give the Zombie Hero a card advantage. Value trading also includes the cost of the card. For example, using Bungee Plumber to remove a would be a more value trade than using Rocket Science, due to the cost difference of Bungee Plumber. Value Value refers to how effective a card is compared to other cards that have similar characteristics. For example, a Pea Pod has more value than a Peashooter because of its ability to gain +1 /+1 at the beginning of every turn. Value can also refer to how a card can effectively neutralize a combination of cards, sometimes with a lower cost. Notable examples of cards with high value in this sense include Rocket Science, , and Cut Down to Size. Win condition A win condition is a specific means or strategy by which a deck can achieve victory. Decks may have one or more win conditions, and a win condition may be a specific aim of the deck or simply one of various ways in which it could win the match. Re-Peat Moss decks, for example, generally aims to obtain victory through its namesake card. Deck Archetypes Aggro An aggro deck, sometimes known as a rush deck, is a deck whose main purpose of winning is to do damage to the enemy hero as quickly as possible, through the use of playing low-cost minions and damaging tricks to overwhelm the opposing hero. Some aggro decks use board clears to clear the way for the weaker minions such as The Chickening or Sour Grapes to finish the opposing hero off. The Imp tribe and the Mushroom tribe are often used in aggro decks due to their cheap costs and overwhelming playstyle. The term aggro itself is derived from the word "aggressive," referring to how quickly the deck aims to deal damage. Budget A budget deck is a deck that uses as few sparks as possible, so new players can be able to rank up on early ranks. These decks mostly rely on the use of uncommons and rares and have few super-rares, events, and legendaries. These types of decks are often either an aggro deck or a midrange deck. Since many cards lack power and are often inferior to other types of decks, these decks will only fare well in early leagues, and thus almost no budget decks reach Ultimate League or even Taco League. Some examples of budget decks are Pea builds and Sports builds due their build-arounds having a low rarity. Combo A combo deck is a deck which involves using two or more cards to execute a great effect within the game, normally game-winning. Most combo decks are normally aiming for a one-turn kill, but some are used to establish powerful board control over the board. Combo decks are mostly control, and normally have cards to delay the opponent until key cards are drawn. Some aggro decks are considered to be combo decks, due to some cards being able to establish board control. Control A control deck, sometimes known as a late-game deck, is a deck which revolves around winning the game in the late game through removal cards (usually tricks), stalling, healing and powerful cards in later turns. Control decks try to control the early game, before having a balance of large teammates to eventually overwhelm opponents, such as Astro Vera and Trickster or Gargantuars' Feast. Gimmick Gimmick decks, sometimes known as meme decks, generally only have one win condition or strategy reliant on a single combo or card. These are arguably the least consistent decks to play, but are usually the most fun for the player (and usually infuriating for the opponent). Notable gimmick/meme decks include double Sergeant Strongberry, [[Card#Deadly|'Deadly']] Fire Roosters, or board flooding followed by Bad Moon Rising. Midrange A midrange deck seeks to attains victory during the mid-game. They are a mix between aggro decks and control decks, by seeking to control the early game, then overwhelming the opponent using medium-sized minions before the late game. Midrange decks often try to use minions with high value for efficient trading and maintain card advantage through card draw or tempo plays. A subtype of midrange decks are tempo decks. They are similar to midrange decks, being centered on tempo, but focus more on aggro than using control. Zoo A zoo deck is a deck focused around a large amount of low and medium-cost minions. Zoo decks generally aim to flood the board with minions, overwhelming the opponent and achieving victory through board control. Zoo decks use mostly cheap minions and efficient trading to dominate the battlefield, before turning their attacks toward the enemy hero. To put it simply, a zoo deck acts as a control deck, before it's the right time to strike, becoming an aggro deck. Category:Plants vs. Zombies Heroes